Chuck vs 3XK
by MyNameIsJeffNImLost
Summary: aka How to not get arrested. 4th in "Averages" crossover series, after "Castle vs the Law of Averages," "Caskett vs Dr Morgan," and "Beckett vs the Linchpin." Takes place a few months after the Chuck finale and right after Castle 5.05, Probable Cause.


_Posted on Jan 30, 2019 (Seven years and and three days after the Chuck season finale, when Chuck fans were sad and starting to theorize what happened after the beach. After three days, I had made over 90 posts on the chuckthis WordPress blog.)_

aka How to not get arrested.

A/N: This story is the fourth of one of my two crossover series. This series's first story was the Awesome Award-winning "Castle vs the Law of Averages." (It won the 2011 Bryce Larkin Memorial Award For Best Crossover Story.) In this series, that story was followed by the one-shots "Caskett vs Dr Morgan" and post-Chuck series story "Beckett vs the Linchpin." This series is compatible with, but not linked to, "Chuck Sarah vs Their Next Adventure." It's also unrelated to my _Castle_ /alternating _Stargate: SG-1_ _Chuck_ series, which starts with "This Never Happened."

This story is followed by the series's 5th: twelve chapter "Chuck vs the Hunt" (which could be something like Chuck vs Bad-guy Naming Fun.)

This story begins during the initial autumn of _Castle_ season five right after its episode "Probable Cause." That was 2012, months after the _Chuck_ series finale. Castle and Beckett were officially together at the start of season five, _secretly_. Their family knew and their friend/coworkers Detectives Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito and medical examiner Dr. Lanie Parish had just found out. I have Chuck and Sarah back together for a several months by then, with them fully together starting right after the beach scene in the finale. Sarah has most of her memory back, but it still has occasional holes. No one remembers everything anyway, but her memory gaps are more glaring when they come up. Chuck helps her when needed, and she wouldn't rather be anywhere but with Chuck.

This story leverages fallout from _Castle_ season 2 episode "3XK" and season 5 episode "Probable Cause," which featured the return of the triple killer. They aired a while ago, so if you need details from those _Castle_ episodes or _Chuck_ , just PM me. Or watch the episodes again. 3XK is not in this story, but the fallout of "Probable Cause" provides the reason for this story.

Disclaimer: Nobody else owns anything here, so why would I?

Disclaimer 2: No beta. Why would I sucker/obligate/subject anyone into reading this when they didn't want to? However, if you PM me corrections, I'll fix them.

* * *

 _ **Bzzzz, Bzzzz.**_

Rick Castle groaned and reached for the phone on the nightstand. They better not be calling her in. Detective Kate Beckett had the next three days off, and she was spending them with him. He didn't care how many murders happened last night, he had plans for her, and not just _those_ kind of plans.

He planned on going out together in public and do coupley things, even if the circumstances made it a little tricky. Although Lanie and the boys has recently been let in on their secret, the Old Haunt bar, which he owned, was frequented by too many cops so word might get back to Captain Gates. Half the city probably was still looking for him because of the recent fugitive alert messages on the TV even though that mess was over. Despite that, he was determined to get the two of them out of the loft and her apartment, even if it was just for a long detour through Central Park as they switched between the two. Maybe he could twist her arm, and they could eat out. It wouldn't be anyplace notable or fancy because of possible celebrity photographers, but it would be nice to go on an actual date for once. They went on more "dates" in the four years before they were together as a couple.

He unlocked the phone and looked at the text message. Lanie wanted to go out for drinks and details. With him? It took him a few seconds before his brain woke up enough to realize he was looking at Kate's phone.

Where was the good detective?

Rick untangled himself from the sheets and set out to find his partner. There were two obvious choices: in the kitchen for coffee or in the bathroom.

His ears finally woke up enough to catch the obvious clue. The shower was on. He stumbled to the door, hoping to find her about to enter or having just exited. Either worked for him, but honestly, he had no clue how long the shower had been running.

He knocked softly and entered without waiting for a response. "Kate, Lanie sent you a text. She wants details, but I call dibs on our three days of fun."

Kate poked her head around the end of the shower curtain. "Castle, what are you doing with my phone? I thought I told you that you can't just go through all of my stuff now." She was glaring, or at least trying to. He couldn't take her too seriously when she was naked behind that thin shower curtain. She seemed to know it too, as the corners of her lips quirked up slightly.

"But it woke me up," he protested. It came out as more of a playful whine than a protest.

"Well, I tried waking you up earlier, but you were dead to the world. I was very disappointed."

Rick knew what that meant. He was suddenly very disappointed too, putting on his best pouting face.

"How about you put down something I don't share, my phone, and join me for something I do share with you?"

That wasn't really a question.

Castle was in the shower in record time. He might choose to not remember when she told him not to touch her things, but he didn't need to be told twice when she was giving him an open invitation to touch her stuff.

A while later, Kate was working on her hair in front on the bathroom mirror when Rick wrapped his arms around her from behind. His left hand pulled her hips back to his, but his right hand was extended, holding her phone.

"I thought I told you to stop touching my stuff," Kate said. If she was going to be pulled from behind by him, fine, but she wanted his full attention.

"A rule breaking which you rewarded with what we just did in the shower."

He had a point.

"I'm doing this with your supervision," he justified.

Kate sighed. "You better not be texting Lanie back. I'll put her off until the next time you have to write. Then I'm inviting her over to your place, just in case you might need an alibi." After last time, she had no intention of leaving him alone for another framing any time soon. She sometimes needed some time to herself, but maybe the boys and the redheads could take shift to keep him out of trouble.

"There's no way I'll be able to write with the two of you giggling in the living room."

"I don't giggle, but I'm surprised you think our activities are giggle worthy," she said.

"I'm trying to keep my ego in check. I meant 'oo'ing and 'ah'ing."

Kate wanted to quip back, but if she told Lanie the full truth, there would be some "wow"ing. She didn't really want that level of embarrassment, so she needed at least a couple days to figure out how she was going to play this. Rick was her partner and boyfriend, but even Rick didn't have an all access pass, so of course Lanie wouldn't either.

Back to the concern at hand, Kate asked, "It is a little odd that both of us use my badge number of our phone unlock codes. Didn't you get your own phone back yesterday at the precinct, along with your computer? Can't you mess with those?"

"But messing with your stuff is so much more fun. You seemed to think so too, just a few minutes ago." Rick's innuendo really didn't help. She wore jeans, but his left hand was wandering.

She lightly complained, "I'm trying to get ready here. If you want us to go out, I need to finish this."

"You already look beautiful to me." He didn't even look.

"Not all of us go out naked and ride police horses," she pointed out.

"That argument would be more effective if you were actually naked right now."

"Castle!" Kate lightly swatted his left hand.

He didn't respond. His left hand had stopped wandering, and he seemed more distracted by the phone in his right. She looked down and saw what had caught his interest: her missed call log.

"Did you know you have about 47 missed calls?"

"No, there are only 24," she corrected. "I haven't bothered to clear them yet. They're from media outlets. Tyson must have leaked my direct number to them. I'll probably have to change it. They started calling when you were arrested. When you escaped, the calls increased."

"Now, I'm going to be an even bigger celebrity. Maybe Jason Bateman will be mistaken for me for a change," Rick mused.

"Heaven help him. I'm hoping this will keep you off the paper's most eligible bachelors list."

"This incident just reaffirms my bad boy image."

"There's bad boy, and there's fugitive. The latter isn't desirable, and it'd be hard to be desirable as both a fugitive and a bachelor at the same time."

"Except to you." Rick bent around and kissed the side of her neck.

"You're an exception for me, but trust me that fugitive and bad boy don't work for me. I'd like you off the list because you're mine and are no longer eligible."

Kate wanted to disagree harder, but all she could do with his lips on that spot was sigh. His absence from the list would as much as highlight their involvement with each other to anyone who knew them. They needed to still hide it from some. It was too new.

When she noticed that Rick was distracted with her phone again, she turned to refocus his attention off the phone and back on her. Before she had a chance, he stepped back with a concerned look. "Not all of these calls are from media outlets."

Kate placed her arms loosely on his shoulders, but he just lifted the phone so he could read it over her arms. Kate hated when his attention was diverted to toys and gadgets. Ok, maybe she didn't always hate it. It was sort of cute sometimes. But right then, she wanted to be the toy. They had _three whole days_.

"You have two calls from Carmichael Industries," he said.

She leaned in to kiss his jaw. As she worked her way up the side, she absently asked, "Who?"

"Carmichael Industries." Castle levered her hip on his side to angle her where she could see the phone. That was not what she wanted. Once he realized what was going on, the phone would be long forgotten. Half of their day out might be shot too, but that's what tomorrow was for.

"It's probably just a solicitor," she suggested.

"Wasn't Carmichael the code name that those CIA agents, I mean ex-CIA agents, from LA used? It's an LA area code. I bet this is their company." Kate didn't want to admit it, but he was probably right. "We should call them back," he said.

That was definitely not what she wanted. "Castle, we have better things to do right now than to get pulled into one of their spy missions."

Her protest fell on deaf ears as Castle had already hit return call and speaker phone. Beckett abruptly pulled out of his arms and returned to fixing herself up for the day. Her impromptu plan for round two was not happening because of Mr. Oblivious.

 _ **BRRRIIINNNGGG. BRRRIIINNNGGG.**_

Alex McHugh slid across the dining area floor to look at the offending phone. It was work.

Despite her small hope, she knew before it wasn't her dad. He understood how time zones worked and wouldn't call this early. The normal ring tone was also an indicator. She'd been trying to prevent Morgan from switching it. As cute as it was for him to reprogram her phone with patriotic songs for her dad's number, he cycled through burner phones so often it was hard to keep up. She also didn't appreciate it when he programmed in _Short Skirt, Long Jacket_ for Sarah or _Mr. Roboto_ for Chuck. Morgan tried passing that off on Chuck, but Sarah said that after Ellie's wedding, _Mr. Roboto_ was Bryce's song. (A dead guy couldn't call.) The fact that even Sarah remembered that theme song tidbit made his cover story completely fall apart. He then spent the next day apologizing for his selection of _Simply Irresistible_ for Ellie. He clearly wasn't thinking. That subconscious choice went back to high school. At least he didn't pick _Right Here Waiting_.

Alex knew enough about that time to not hold it against him too much. She just thought he was so cute when her boyfriend went overboard with the grovelling. It included an especially good home cooked dinner and snuggling in front of her choice of a movie marathon. While they had the same tastes in food and movies, Morgan was in a rut of chick flicks and kung-fu movies, which she would be able to break them out of with a classic sci-fi evening. The night would be topped off with a really good time in the bedroom. She wouldn't mind if he screwed up and was forced to apologize more often. The apology worked for both of them.

At least this default ringer was recognizable as a phone and didn't blend in as background music.

 ** _BRRRIIINNNGGG. BRRRIIINNNGGG._**

Alex groaned. It was too early for a call from work. Calling before 8 AM, it must be someone on the East Coast. They had more trouble with time zones and seemed to forget that the world didn't revolve around them. If it was Beckman in DC, who didn't care about time zones and thought the world should rotate around her, at least she didn't pop up on the TV screen like last time. Thankfully Chuck blocked that security hole after the last incident. The general was blocked from impromptu calls to the TV across the courtyard too.

She took a deep breath and composed herself before she answered the phone. "Carmichael Industries, the computer security company that cares. Is this an emergency or can we call you back in an hour from the office?" They technically didn't open until 9, sometimes 10, but if she could get Morgan to stop grooming his beard, they could probably get in earlier today.

"Um, this is Richard Castle."

"The author-slash-fugitive for murder? We were wondering when you would call back," Alex said. Yes, it was from the East Coast. But she didn't want to wait for a callback.

"I didn't do it; I was framed–"

"Honey, who is it?" Morgan interrupted as he walked down the stairs.

"It's that author who was framed for murder." She changed the subject. "What did you do to your beard?"

"It's for Halloween. Like it?"

Back in front of a New York vanity, Kate put down her curler and hit the mute button. "See Castle this is why you shouldn't have called. Right now, we could be enjoying our day off back in bed, but instead we're going to get subjected to Dr Morgan and the spy sideshow."

"What's wrong with the spy show? Wait. Did you say we could be in bed?"

"Yeah, you missed the signals earlier."

"I… what… how… but we just…"

"It's not like there's a daily limit. Or even a morning one. Something you keep reminding me."

"It's not too late," Castle hoped.

"The moment is gone."

"It's never gone."

"I'm not doing my hair twice today. I'm too far along now."

Castle argued, "I'm fine with a ponytail. That's always cute, and it's a little sexy."

"You don't tell a woman who's already almost done with her hair that she didn't need to bother." She pointed a brush at him. She had won her point.

"Understood."

"And you better not pout all day either. Now let's see why they called." Kate unmuted her phone that Castle was still holding.

" _It's for Halloween. Like it?"_ Morgan's voice came through the speaker.

"You and Chuck aren't going to be a space penis again this year?" Alex asked.

"Alex, you know perfectly well that is Shi'ulute from _Dune_. It's not a costume for a man part. And no, Chuck wanted to do couples' costumes this year."

"So what are you and Chuck going to be?" Alex smirked.

"Funny." Morgan was too used to the Chuck and Morgan couple jokes for it to have any effect. They each had their own significant other anyway. "He meant for boys coupled with their girls, but I thought the four of us could dress to match, as evil spies. I'll have a goatee and adopt this Italian persona I used on a mission once."

That concerned Alex a little. "I don't care for evil Morgan. He does stupid things like break up with me via text message."

"I know. I know. My brain was not right, which caused that. That's why I'm not going as evil Morgan. He wears faux-dreadlock hats. I'm going as an evil spy. According to Mirror Universe rules, that means a goatee and maybe a scar."

That was one potential problem out of the way. Alex did not want the return of that Morgan, even in a costume. She said, "I guess evil spies could be ok. Too bad Sarah's leather spy outfits wouldn't fit me because she's too tall."

"We'll find something. Sarah will be donning the black hair she sported when she was infiltrating Volkoff's organization. Chuck has been trying to convince Sarah to let him dye his hair blonde. If she doesn't agree, he'll slick it back. He's also going back and forth between a fake goatee and a monocle."

"Why not both?"

"He doesn't want to oversell it. Sarah already nixed the long cigarette holder."

"That would be too Monopoly," she said as if it was obvious. "I still can't believe you shaved part of your beard."

"Yeah well, it's all coming off the day after Halloween," Morgan admitted.

"No. I'm vetoing that idea. Girlfriend's prerogative. I like your beard."

"It'll be back within a day or two. Chuck and I are having a beard growing contest for Movember. He's going down." Morgan emphasized his point with a vocal drop as he pointed to the floor. "He has no idea whom he is messing with."

"Ellie told me he grew a grizzly man beard one time when Sarah and he were on the outs."

"I saw it. It was pathetic. That couldn't have been more than two days growth for me. I have hair follicles that have been struggling to breathe since high school. Also, Sarah's good with knives, so I fully expect her to shave his off before it gets noticeable. We have an agreement."

"That's cheating."

"Since when does Sarah care about that? The challenge will be getting him to not notice." Morgan smiled.

"You _are_ evil."

"I've been re-reading the old evil overlord list from the Internet to get ready for the Halloween part. I'm not going to monologue all of my plans."

Alex had a suggestion. "Hey, I know what I can do for my costume. I can dress like a slutty evil spy."

"Ooo, me likes. What exactly does that entail?" Morgan's face lit up. A lot of Halloween costumes for women were "slutty" something, but he wanted specifics.

"You know. I could dress like your ex, Anna." Alex smirked.

Morgan's smile was gone. "You, well, um, don't you have someone on the phone?"

"Oh yeah. Let me put it on speaker."

"Hello. Are you still there?" Alex asked.

Back in New York, Castle said, "Yes. I was saying I was cleared and am no longer a fugitive."

"Good to hear. We'd been expecting a call from your detective partner for a while. Maybe we can get Chuck and Morgan off their _Fugitive_ kick now. The movie was good, because hello… Harrison Ford. But Sarah kept talking about flaws in CIA protocol during _U.S. Marshals_ , which didn't even have him in it. A sampling of the old series was fine, but after the second night, I think Sarah and I both wanted to beat Chuck and Morgan with the one-armed man's prosthetic arm."

"Nice imagery. How long ago did you call?" Castle asked. "I just escaped two days ago and was cleared only yesterday."

"We started right after you were arrested. Chuck knew you didn't do it, of course. Morgan made the connection to being framed for a murder you didn't commit, and _The Fugitive_ naturally came up. Sarah didn't know the reference. Hence the marathon."

"Oh right, her memory problem," Beckett recalled.

"No. She had just never heard of it." Morgan clarified. "Her childhood was a bit… unconventional."

"How did you even know about the murder?" Beckett asked.

Alex said, "When a best selling author is arrested for murder, that's national news. When he escapes police custody, that's national news. When he's exonerated, no one cares."

Castle jumped back in. "But you knew I was innocent. How?"

Morgan chimed in, "You'd have to ask Chuck. In fact, let's go do that right now."

Alex cut him off, "Morgan, Chuck can't explain how he figured it out."

"Chuck's good at working around the classified parts. I'm sure Mr. Castle and Detective Beckett would want to know how he knew it was Triple X."

"It's 3XK or the triple killer. Triple X is a wrestler and a movie," Castle corrected. "The triple killer's real name is Jerry Tyson."

"I don't know. Maybe Chuck got that mixed up too. He can explain."

Alex protested, "We can't interrupt them right now. Chuck and Sarah might be busy, and by that I mean getting a little busy of course."

Morgan seemed confused at looked at his watch. "Really? Before work? It's not an anniversary or anything. Although I guess they don't really need an excuse. If I… let me stop that right now before I say something I'll regret."

Castle silently mouthed to Beckett, "It's a little late."

"They're practicing," Alex said.

Morgan sighed. "That's just an excuse for stalling. If they keep just practicing, the Chosen One will never be born. Let's go. It'll be ok."

"Morgan!" Alex called after him.

Morgan quickly crossed the courtyard to Chuck and Sarah's apartment. Like always, he kept his distance from the fountain and the explosives said to be hidden within.

He pointed out the open window to his exasperated girlfriend. "See the Morgan door is open. It must be ok."

"They could be in the shower."

"One way to find out." He barged through the unlocked front door. Alex rushed to follow, still holding the phone.

The couple they were trying to find wasn't in the living room or kitchen. He heard something and went to investigate.

"Morgan!" "Morgan!" came two protests from the other room.

Yep, they were in the shower.

"Sorry." He closed the door to the bathroom. Thankfully, the shower was steamed. Maybe Sarah wouldn't kill him.

"It's ok. We were done," Sarah called through the door without any anger. "We'll be out in a minute."

Beckett covered the phone with her head and whispered, "This call is ruining everyone's fun. He's worse than Martha."

Castle grimaced and then asked, "How are we handling this? Ryan, Espo, Lanie, and the families know."

She looked at him with her _don't be ridiculous_ look.

"Got it. They don't need to know."

From the phone they heard, "Morgan, why don't you come back out here and wait." That was Alex.

Castle looked uncomfortably at Beckett. He whispered, "Sorry. I realize now I shouldn't have called back." At least he knew an apology was warranted.

Beckett smiled and softly said to Castle, "That's ok. This happened last time. Every time I was about to hang up, I heard just enough to keep me on the line despite how uncomfortable it was getting. Now, I really want to know how they knew you were innocent."

"You knew."

"Yeah, but I knew you wouldn't do it, and I wasn't in LA."

Castle admitted, "I also want to hear if they kill Morgan." Beckett rolled her head in a way that could only be considered agreement.

Alex said, "You guys know you are on speaker right?"

"How did you heard that?" Castle asked.

Morgan answered, "My lovely girlfriend transferred this call through our satellite and servers. It does some magic to the audio. Congratulations by the way. I knew you crazy kids would work it out."

"What? You heard that too?" Castle protested. And he had years on Morgan. How could that guy call him a kid?

"Heard what? No, we just caught the last about the possibility of my impending death. Your location puts the two of you in an apartment at this time of day. This thingy up in the corner of the TV says you are in a bathroom. It uses the ambient echo to make a determination.

"What do you know? Two for two today. Three for three if you count when I joined Alex in the shower this morning. Three couples, and we got the trifecta."

Castle and Beckett didn't need to know that. Morgan didn't need to know what they did earlier, but apparently, he figured it out.

Morgan continued, "And… there's a nice view of your ceiling."

Castle covered the phone with his hand. "You turned on the camera! How did you do that? I didn't accept a Skype call."

"Don't ask me. I just clicked the video doohickey along the side. It must be part of our phone plan, or something to do with the transition to our network."

Beckett hurried out of the bathroom into the bedroom to get the rest of her clothes. She had been decent, but it was better to be more fully dressed. She called back, "That's not legal."

Alex responded, "Actually, the Fourth Amendment only applies for government searches. The right to privacy is still an open question in many non-health related circumstances, at least Federally. Even if the laws of the different New York and California were to line up on this specific issue, bringing criminal charges would be difficult jurisdictionally. Instead, you would likely have to bring a civil case. The civil damages for seeing your ceiling would be minimal. Considering you initiated the call, unwanted contact would be hard to establish. Another option would be to use telecommunications laws, but that would be Federal and would never go to trial. We're using classified software Chuck developed for the government. The powers that be wouldn't let it get that far for something like this."

"Let me guess. Lawyer," Castle deadpanned.

"Night classes while working for Carmichael Industries. Our contracts are fairly complicated and are often written by the government or companies with large teams of lawyers, making them even more unnecessarily complicated."

Beckett was done getting dressed enough that Castle felt he could join her in the bedroom.

"Cool Boba Fett," Morgan said. "I have the three inch version, but not the limited edition with working rocket launcher."

Morgan must have gotten a brief look at the life-sized Boba Fett in Castle's bathroom. Castle quickly lifted the phone back to his chest to cover the video feed. It felt as though the pressure to his chest almost stopped his heart. It wasn't really the phone that caused the constriction. He got a view of Barefoot Beckett, complete with skinny jeans and one of those white T-shirts he loved. It was LA all over again, but this time they didn't sleep in separate rooms and he could do something about how she looked..

Beckett shared a look with him that clearly said she knew _exactly_ what he was thinking. The bite of her bottom lip indicated she agreed, but later, when they didn't have an audience. After a deep breath to center herself, she said towards the phone, "Could we maybe transfer this to a computer screen so we could see you?"

Beckett walked out to the study to the laptop on the desk and Castle followed. He was disappointed. Why again did he even make this call?

Morgan said, "I think Chuck might still have a backdoor into your computer, but I don't know how to set it up, so we'll have to wait for him. While we are waiting maybe you could tell me how you got together. Did somebody have to appear to die and fall in the river?"

Castle and Beckett looked at each other in shock. Beckett found her voice first. "What? Wait. No. I almost fell off a building, but that was months ago. Castle shot Jerry Tyson right before he fell into the river yesterday."

"No way! I just said that because it was a key step for Chuck and Sarah," Morgan said with excitement. "Did you find the body?"

Kate answered, "Not yet. They are looking again now that it's daylight. It doesn't matter. He got him."

"Was he or was he not impaled?" That sounded a little condescending from Morgan.

"Of course not. It was a river."

"Oh no. Everyone knows the only way to know for certain that someone is dead is to impale them, unless they are the immortal like in the Highlander. Then, beheading is required. Impaling is still almost always better. The Headless Horseman was beheaded, yet he still terrorizes the night."

"See, I told you," Castle said to Kate.

"Castle, you shot him three times." She was clearly ignoring the fictional character comparison.

"But Dr Morgan says—"

"Because _Doctor_ Morgan says?" Kate raised an eyebrow.

"I have to agree with the detective," Alex chimed in from LA over the phone. "I love this guy, but quoting Morgan is a good way to lose any argument even when he is right. We should look at the facts."

Sarah joined the couple in the living room."That was fast," Alex said.

"I'm a spy," Sarah said with a shrug. "What's going on?"

They filled her in on the demise of Tyson.

Her response was short and simple. "He's alive."

Morgan added, "Ha. She agrees with me, and she doesn't even watch John Carpenter movies."

"Who's John Carpenter?" Sarah asked. "Did he make movies the last five years?"

Castle ignored Sarah's question because how could she not know of him. His movies were older horror classics. He went with the confirmation about Jerry Tyson being alive. "See! And she's a professional spy. She knows about things like faking death."

"No. I just know to make sure someone is dead when I kill them," Sarah said matter-of-factly. She also had said 'when' she killed them, not that she 'would' do something.

Sensing a chance for research, he couldn't help but ask, "What's your best way?"

"Depends on the objective. Poison is not always practical but can be subtle and supports a clean getaway. A knife is messy but effective. I'm accurate enough that it works at medium range. But the best is a shot between the eyes."

Alex added, "My dad says train for center mass, but if you want to be certain, a head shot is best. He's had someone survive a shot to the back and later one in a bullet proof vest." She spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. She might have recently progressed to be a fairly good shot at the range, but she had no real experience aiming at anything that wasn't a paper target.

"Just like Call of Duty. The head blows up like a watermelon." Morgan added an unnecessary sound effect.

Chuck joined the conversation just in time for his contribution. "The best way to kill someone is have Sarah do it. Sorry I'm late. I'm not the natural beauty that Sarah is. Who are we killing?"

Morgan answered, "That serial killer in New York."

"Are you offering?" Castle asked over the phone, and then after catching a look from the NYPD homicide detective in his room he quickly added, "I assume not because we're the good guys and arrest people instead."

"We don't do the killing thing anymore." Chuck said 'we' despite Sarah being the only person in his home that had intentionally killed anyone. "Casey would only do that under orders from the government or to protect family, but his girlfriend might be available for hire if the need arises."

Kate had had enough. "It doesn't matter how bad of an idea this conversation is because Jerry Tyson is already dead."

At that moment, Castle's laptop came alive with the familiar Echo Park living room and four Carmichael Industries employees, fortunately dressed.

Other than her slightly damp hair pulled back with a couple of hair clips, Sarah showed no indication of being minutes removed from shower sex. She wore an inappropriate short skirt that seemed her usual, after the last video call to the ex-spies' living room. She also wore very high heels and a half buttoned-up pale pink blouse. Eye catching, but not technically indecent.

Her right hand was at her husband's neck, maintaining contact. Unlike his wife, Chuck's face was plastered with a silly 'I just had sex' grin. He wore dark jeans and a T-shirt with a weird faux-pas dog on it, which he must have thrown on in a hurry.

To the left, Alex and Morgan were a smaller version of their counterparts. Alex had a few more buttons fastened on her dark blouse and an equal length skirt that fell more appropriately at her knee due to her smaller stature. Morgan also wore a T-shirt and jeans, the shirt with some Asian script. As alluded to earlier, he sported a goatee.

The wooden statue and foosball table from last time were missing.

"How'd he die?" Chuck asked as he set down the tablet he was using as a controller. Sarah quickly dropped her hand to her side, realizing they could be seen.

They explained what happened to Chuck: the bridge, the intentional accident caused by Jerry Tyson, Beckett's shots at his car, Tyson's survival, Castle's shots at Tyson, the river, and the ongoing search.

Chuck absorbed it all and came down with his judgment. "To me, based in several things, including my own experience of shooting someone multiple times before he fell into a river, only to have him reemerge few months later, I think there's a high probability Tyson is alive. At least 75%. If I had to put a number on it… 90.38%."

Point three eight? That was specific.

Morgan jumped in, "See. Better odds than the Millennium Falcon surviving an asteroid belt, and we know how that turned out. Bottom line: don't believe he is dead unless you see viscera and preferably brain matter."

Alex weighed in next, "Sorry to say it detective, but my team has me convinced. That makes it 5 to 1. 3XK is still alive."

Beckett wasn't having it. "People are not alive by vote."

"No," Sarah confirmed calmly. "They are dead when you see the body, warm it to room temperature to assure no hypothermic coma, and run a blood test to ensure something like tetrodotoxin was not used. In the case of an explosion, a sufficient number of body parts must be identified. It's best if the blast is witnessed from all angles, to ensure there wasn't a last second escape. Vaporized bodies are exceedingly rare, and a hand or foot proves nothing."

"Just like the third Harry Potter," Morgan added, trying to be helpful.

"I know that one," Sarah chimed in. "We saw it a couple months ago. I knew the finger was a ruse right away. I doubt Jerry Tyson transformed into a rat."

Kate wasn't going to win this argument and didn't care about opinions and fictional stories. She wanted facts, starting with, "How did you know Castle was innocent?"

Chuck said, "It wasn't that hard. I'll explain if you keep in mind that a lot of what I'm about to say is from a technically classified source and shouldn't end up in a police report or novel. Kapice?"

Kate and Rick agreed.

Chuck started, "When I heard about the arrest, I connected to Beckett's computer using the same backdoor as last time. It still hadn't been closed, but I later patched it so you are better protected in the future. From there, I established an extra wifi hotspot, flooding the precinct's wifi network so that network reset to a different subchannel frequency. Then I was able hijack your computer to be a new router, resetting the encryption key, and everyone connected to that machine."

Sarah interjected, "Chuck, sweetheart. Skip ahead."

"Right. I downloaded the jewelry store video. Facial recognition matched, but shadows didn't."

"What shadows? The video was grainy and indoors," Kate said.

"Inside the display case. We have top notch video processing software, so that was caught right away." Chuck explained.

"They hired an actor. They didn't need to fake shadows," Kate said. "Video image discrepancies were present last time, three years ago."

"The person on the video this time didn't look exactly like an evil twin, so the real person had been edited into the video, which can change shadows. The external cameras showed a different person, your actor, cross the street three blocks away before he was fully in disguise."

"You collected surrounding footage?" Kate asked. "We normally only do a couple blocks around a crime scene, but not when a security camera is clearly at the scene in question."

"Huh. I didn't realize that. I just collected all online footage for Manhattan for a few weeks before the crime, so our range was a little wider," Chuck said.

"All footage? For the island? That would take weeks just to transfer."

"Not if it was already collected and transferred, but we're getting off track. What the NSA does or doesn't do is classified. The tricky video was the lobby of the apartment you're in. That video was masterfully edited, but I noticed a couple anomalies.

"Video uses delta compression between frames. In a couple places, the compression efficiency in the files degraded because the delta had been large, but the video was not to have changed. Video with no changes should have compressed better. Also the timestamps shifted by one frame, or 1/30th of a second. Both are signs of video splicing. The tapes had been edited, likely covering when 3XK entered and exited.

"The change was focused around while you were in the Hamptons solving the meth smuggling case."

Castle asked, "How did you know we helped with that? Our names aren't in any of the reports. Only family was supposed to know we were there."

"You still had an arrest record the local sheriff didn't completely remove. I took care of it for you. The arrest was obviously unlawful and malicious, not that they pressed charges anyway."

"Thanks, I guess."

"Anyway, from there I looked at your computer. I saw the fake emails. Don't worry. I didn't read the real or even the fake ones. I just looked at the metadata for problems. The header timestamps didn't look right. Sure they were chronological, but that was part of the problem. The time zone matched. Sure both sender and receiver were in New York, but the servers in between were in California while they more likely would be local. I hacked into the email provider that transmitted the emails at one point, but the emails were not recorded in their server logs and were not in the backup archives. That means the service provider had been hacked for transmission, but it was not fully compromised in a uniform manner. Carmichael Industries has officially notified them and offered them a service plan, but their lawyers are in damage-control mode. If you want, you probably can make a civil suit for providing false information to a government search warrant since they are the ones who unknowingly handed over fake evidence. Preventing all hacking is nearly impossible, but not providing full and correct information when faced with a warrant was their fault.

"Back on your computer," Chuck continued, "the suspicious email messages were on consecutive hard drive sectors. Nice job defragging nightly, by the way, even if it is done automatically. The chances of messages from weeks apart existing on consecutive sectors is way less likely than something like surviving a fall from a bridge into an almost freezing river.

"Finally, during one of the emails, you were on the phone with your daughter. Before you suggest that an email can be sent while on the phone, the call used a Long Island cell phone tower when you were on the road back from the Hamptons. A person would really have to know what he is doing to send an email from your home when you are physically on a different island. Doing it when your home computer is off is not possible."

Rick and Kate looked at each other. What was he talking about?

Chuck kept going, "I thought about erasing the emails while I was hooked into the NYPD computers, but decided would be be easier to prove the initial tampering without my additional tampering to fix it. With your computer out of evidence lock-up and back on your local wifi network, I've restored your local emails from server backups. The charges have been dropped, but the bogus evidence would be hard to restore. If someone tried to do it, it would reveal the bogus source."

At this point, Morgan, who had been nodding with a blank look to try to fake understanding, gave up.

Chuck had even more, and Sarah still wasn't stopping him. "All of that exonerated Mr. Castle, but did not find the murderer. Sarah profiled your old cases and identified Jerry Tyson as the most likely suspect to come at you sideways like that. From there, I followed the money. Jewelry was purchased with money from Castle's pocket account. 3XK withdrew it. Mr Castle, you really need to not use the detective's badge number for your pin. I figured it out before even launching my password attempt and retry program. I recommend changing the pin on any other account that uses the badge number and activating two phase authentication. The security isn't that much better, considering Tyson had physical access to your home, but it provides slightly better protection and provides better tracking when you are hacked.

"I identified when and where the $12,000 was withdrawn, and scanned security footage, verifying Jerry Tyson. He withdrew money from another account of his own during the same visit. Bank records showed his account. From there I was able to find his purchase of the warehouse."

Kate noted that he said he looked at bank records.

Sarah said, "Chuck, sweetheart, take a breath." She laid a hand on his neck in a soothing gesture and turned back to the screen. "Sorry, I find him cute when he rambles so it got out of hand, but you didn't need all of that detail. We figured it out and verified our findings. At this point, we called."

Stunned, everyone was silent for a minute, except Morgan, who had long since left to make pancakes in Chuck's kitchen. The sounds of his stirring was a sharp contrast to the silence.

Beckett finally said, "It seems like we should have called you back twenty-four hours earlier."

"You could have called us two days earlier," Chuck said pointedly.

"You didn't call back, so we arranged the break out," Sarah added.

"That was you?" Rick asked.

Before they could answer, Kate asked her partner, "You didn't know who broke you out?"

"Obviously a friend, but I didn't know which one," Rick said defensively.

"It could have been Tyson," Kate pointed out. Rick blanched at the thought. Though, Tyson had plans for Rick in prison if he hadn't escaped, so it was probably somebody else.

Sarah said, "If you'd like, Carmichael Industries can provide training to your NYPD computer forensic staff. I'm sure they are very good, but they are behind on the state of the art and obviously didn't catch this level of technical manipulation. We also offer weapons and hand-to-hand training."

"Uh, I don't think that is necessary. It's not in the budget," Beckett said.

"We also offer train-the-trainer services," Alex offered.

"I… I'll pass it along."

Castle asked, "With all of your computer magic, have you found 3XK?"

Chuck said, "Sorry, no new info, but if something comes up, we'll let you know."

"Well, I guess we should thank you for all of the work."

"No big deal. It was an hour tops. And on the upside, it inspired a _Fugitive_ marathon," Chuck added as if it was a positive.

"That was not an upside," Alex mumbled. Chuck didn't know Alex had already said that it had gone on too long.

"Even if the training doesn't fly, if it's not too much trouble, I suppose you could type up your report and send a bill," Beckett suggested. "I can't promise any money, though." They had _really_ screwed up arresting Castle. There needed to be a record that even someone else had figured it out.

"No problem and no charge," Chuck said. "Plus some of our techniques were not technically legal. Well, they were, but they were not common knowledge. Our clients allow certain things under contract, and others don't want that our methods in the courts."

"Good point. I know problems can be caused by paperwork," Kate said.

Kate and Rick both thanked them profusely for the breakout.

Alex closed with, "Next time, just call."


End file.
